


Fireflies

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Reimbodiment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Celebrimbor, helping Maeglin adjust to his new life in Valinor brings back old memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireflies

They both stayed out of the city as much as they could these days, avoiding the Ñoldorin court as best they could.

Sometimes they avoided it together.

“The air is too hot, even on the hill of Túna” complained Maeglin as they made their way along a sloping path, the fields that encircled the city rolling out before them, grass waving languidly in the merest flutter of a summer breeze. “Was it always like this?”

“It was hotter in the years of the Trees, but drier, less humid.”

“Hmm” said Maeglin, frowning at his feet as he walked, but Celebrimbor knew that it was not the weather that made Maeglin want to wander far from his kin in the city. The stares, the whispers… cruel words that bit like stinging flies, and an oppressive silence that fell whenever he entered a room that crushed the air from his lungs, stifling.

Celebrimbor understood, a little. There was a different kind of silence that fell whenever he entered a room;  _Fëanor’s grandson_ , it seemed to cry out.  _One of them._ The lines of his own face, so like those of the most infamous of the Ñoldor were naught but a curse in that city, he thought, not for the first time and certainly not for the last.

“Does it look the same?” asked Maeglin abruptly, gesturing at the countryside around them. “As how you remember it, I mean.”

Celebrimbor considered this for a moment, taking in the waving grasses, the rippling stream whose bank they had been following, the indistinct hazy green of the line of trees that marked the edge of the forest. “Yes” he said. “And no. I was young. Most of my clear memories of my childhood are of Formenos, the great stronghold up in the mountains in the north, where the air is cold and the light of the Trees was fainter. It’s probably just as bright as Tirion up there now though.” He frowned; the realisation made him feel odd. “Different from around here, anyway. It’s all high cliffs and carven stone.”

“I don’t think I’d want to go there” said Maeglin, his tone carefully neutral.

“Even if you did, there wouldn’t be much to see, I suppose. The fortress at Formenos was near destroyed when  _he_  came” said Celebrimbor, “I have not heard of it being rebuilt, even all these years later. There was a village too, at the base of the cliffs, but my mother says that most of the inhabitants left after the Darkening.”

“Your mother” said Maeglin, a wan smile tugging at his lips. “Do I ever get to meet her then?”

“Do you…” Celebrimbor had been unprepared for the question.  _What would I introduce him as? A friend from long ago? The traitor of Gondolin?_  He looked at Maeglin, who seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.  _The one I -_

“Oh, relax” said Maeglin. “Of course I do not require you to formally introduce me your mother. Truth be told, I’d rather be formally introduced to as few people as possible, something that I’m glad my own mother understands.”

“She missed you, before you were returned to us. She feared you would never be allowed to leave the Halls” said Celebrimbor, on a whim. “We… we all did.”

“I’m sure they all grieved terribly” said Maeglin, his voice flat. “All those people who died because of me, or whose lives I ruined. I’m sure they were outraged at the injustice of me being prevented from returning.”

“Not them” said Celebrimbor, impatiently. “Your mother loves you, you know. Even Turgon loves you, somewhere deep down, and I think he’ll find it in his heart to forgive you one day. And I - ” he broke off, flustered. “I missed you, too.”

Maeglin looked a little ashamed. “Sorry” he mumbled. “I know.” He reached up and placed a swift, brushing kiss on Celebrimbor’s lips, almost teasing in its lightness, before carrying on walking as though nothing had happened. He fell into step beside Celebrimbor, letting their hands brush each other as they walked, and the two of them fell into companionable silence for a while.

“Would you show me all of this land?” asked Maeglin, after a while. “I think I should like to see it. If it were you showing it to me.”

“All of it?” asked Celebrimbor with a quiet laugh, but his heart was singing. “That may take some time.”

Maeglin shrugged. “It seems to me that time is the one thing we have far more of than we know what to do with, these days.”

“Yes, of course.”

The day passed in sun and light winds, the sky still hazy. They stopped under a willow tree by the river bank on the edge of the forest and ate the food they had brought with them, rye bread and hard cheese, a bunch of small sweet golden grapes. Afterwards they talked, lying on the bank and speaking in short bursts and comfortable silences, as unhurried and dreamy as the day had been.

To Celebrimbor it all had an unreal quality to it; he had spent so long fully expecting never to see Maeglin again, unsure what he would say or do if he did. Avoiding even letting himself think about the possibility… and yet here Maeglin was, allowed back into the world, into this place that Celebrimbor had never associated with him before.

He smiled faintly as he watched Maeglin talk, head leaning back against folded arms and his hair spilling free, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. It had only been two weeks since he had been returned, and his new skin was still pale as milk, soft and smooth. Celebrimbor was still unused to seeing Maeglin without the tattoos that had once twined across his back and shoulders, just showing beneath his collar, or laid bare under the trusted touch of Celebrimbor’s own hands.  _No, not truly trusted_ , Celebrimbor had to remind himself. The thought came accompanied by a hollow ache in his chest.  _Not in the end._

But Maeglin’s eyes were still the same. So were his gestures as he spoke, and when he turned to look at him Celebrimbor knew he was well and truly lost.

He suddenly realised he had barely been listening to what Maeglin was saying, and he told him so, with a rueful smile. Maeglin frowned, an eyebrow quirking up ironically as he inspected the backs of his hands. “Admiring the breathtaking beauty of my new body?”

“Of course” said Celebrimbor brightly.

“It’s the same as the old one.” A shadow crossed Maeglin’s face. “Well…”

“Exactly my point” said Celebrimbor, to fill the silence, and reached for Maeglin, cupping his cheeks with both hands. Their lips brushed together in a gentle, light kiss.  _I could get used to this_ , thought Celebrimbor, and then,  _no, I will never grow used to him. He will always find a new way to surprise me._ Memory took him, sudden and sharp.

_Two days after Maeglin’s return, he had sought Celebrimbor out. They had talked then, long into the night. ‘Settling matters with those from my past’, Maeglin had said, stiffly, formally. Celebrimbor had been taken by surprise; he remembered the clumsiness of his speech with a slight wince._

_They had talked and talked until there was nothing left that stood between them, and then they had stood in silence, both regarding the other cautiously. The tension had held for a moment, and then they were in each other’s arms, and everything was almost as it had once been, long ago and a world away. No, Celebrimbor remembered thinking dimly as Maeglin clung to him, their bodies pressed together and hot tears welling in both their eyes. Not quite as it had once been. They could never go back, nor should they. Despite himself, despite everything, the thought had left him a little sad, but Maeglin had been quick to help him forget the moment of melancholy._

Now their passion was less urgent, for it was a day for being languid, for savouring, for exploring, for taking their time. Maeglin smelled like warm grass and sweat and the heady thick sweetness of the flowers that they had crushed beneath their bodies where they lay on the ground. Celebrimbor could not remember a time when Maeglin had not smelled at least a little of leather and hot metal. He frowned into the kiss, pulling Maeglin closer, on top of him.

“What if someone sees?” asked Maeglin, his voice thick and husky.

“It’s a big place, Aman” said Celebrimbor. “Big and empty, even these days, especially outside of the city. And it’s not as if there are orcs to…” he trailed off as Maeglin drew back, looking a little alarmed. Celebrimbor’s face burned, and he cursed himself for a fool. Sitting up, he slid Maeglin off his lap, holding his forearms and stroking back the hair that had fallen across his brow. “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean…” he swallowed. “Maeglin. We don’t have to…”

“No” said Maeglin, biting his lip and smiling thinly.  _His eyes were the same opaque black, framed by heavy dark lashes…_ “I want… I want…” he broke off and kissed Celebrimbor once again, pushing him back to the ground.

Celebrimbor felt his body respond as Maeglin pressed against him, hands twining through his hair.  _No_ , he thought vaguely, heart singing.  _No, I will never ever get used to this._  

It grew dark, and they stood, gathering their clothes and dressing fully once more, brushing grass and crushed flower petals from themselves and shaking out their hair.

“Flowers” said Maeglin, plucking a daisy and staring at it wonderingly. “It’s fascinating how new and interesting they seem now, given how little I cared about them in my first life.” He presented the flower to Celebrimbor with a grin and a mocking flourish. “A gift.”

Celerbrimbor smiled wryly, tucking the flower into his hair. “I shall wear it with pride.” He stood and leaned against Maeglin’s shoulders, hooking his chin against the curve of Maeglin’s neck from behind. “It’s dusk. Are you certain you want to go back to - ”

“What’s that?” Maeglin interrupted, twitching violently.

“What?”

“That!” Maeglin pointed as Celebrimbor held him, a little alarmed at the sudden tension in Maeglin’s muscles.  _That body that he loved so well, the well muscled arms, free now of scars or the low-level buzzing tingle of the glamour Maeglin had once worn, long ago. The lie._

“Those lights!”

Celebrimbor narrowed his eyes and peered into the gloom that was swiftly gathering by the riverbank, where the forest began. At first, he saw nothing. Then, slowly, tiny pinpricks of light began to appear, one by one, shifting and moving in lazy clusters. Celebrimbor barely breathed, suddenly transported back many years, many centuries.

_“They are fireflies” Fëanáro had said, as he held Tyelperinquar in his lap. Tyelperinquar had been small then, small enough to be held. “People say that they are Oromë’s lamps, and perhaps the great hunter makes use of them” Fëanáro continued, “but they are not of the craft of the Valar.” He sighed. “My mother used to show me them, when I was smaller than you are now, Tyelpë.” Even as a child, Tyelperinquar had heard the brittleness creep into his voice, although he had not known why then. “She said they had a little piece of fire caught within themselves.” He paused. “Just like me, she said.”_

_“Oh” Tyelperinquar had replied, eyes wide. He held out a hand towards the fireflies, laughing delightedly as the points of light flew away from his hand. “Is it real fire? How does it get inside?”_

_“That is something that we as a people have not yet found out, though I mean to, one day still.” Fëanáro had smiled, ruefully. “I caught one, once, Tyelpë, did you know? I was young, then. I kept it in a jar and I used to watch it at night, closing the curtains and pulling the blankets over my head to block out the light of Telperion, and watch it fly around within the glass, trying to work out how it kept that little flame burning within itself.”_

_“Oh” said Tyelperinquar again; he did not know what else to say. He could not imagine his bright, strong grandfather as a child, with childish fancies, and he had never heard Fëanáro speak like this before. “What happened to it?”_

_Fëanáro had hesitated almost imperceptibly. “It died” he had said simply. Celebrimbor had later learned that Fëanáro had never believed in lying to a child. “After a few days. I tried to keep it alive, but it slipped away. Perhaps such creatures are not meant to be kept in jars. I dissected it afterwards, to try to find the source of the light, but I never found it. I was none too skilful, nor rigorous in my investigations as a child.” For a moment the ghost of a smile crossed his face but then he frowned, watching the fireflies before them. “Still…”_

_“Still?”_

_“Atar! Tyelpë! There you are.”_

_The shout had come from behind them, and the fireflies stirred, taking flight in a swirl of bright points of light that made Tyelperinquar gasp happily and clap his hands._

_Fëanáro turned. “Ah, Curvo. I was showing Tyelpë the fireflies. Are their lights not beautiful?”_

_Curufinwë had smiled at that, one of his rare open and true smiles, though it was tinged with sadness. “They are indeed” he had said, and he had meant it._

_That night, Tyelperinquar had fallen asleep in his father’s arms on the way home, with the bright glow of fireflies dancing through his dreams._  

Celebrimbor shook his head, holding Maeglin close to his chest from behind. “Fireflies” he whispered in Maeglin’s ear. “They live in forest places, and by water. Did you never see them in Nan Elmoth?”

“Would that I had” said Maeglin, gazing at the fireflies, entranced now that his initial alarm had faded. “I little light would have been… a comfort.”

“Morning will come” said Celebrimbor quietly. “Light will return. And in the meantime there are fireflies, and the stars, and the moon, and no forest walls or stone cities to stay within, not if you don’t want to.” He felt himself flushing, unsure of where these words were coming from.

Maeglin turned to look at him in the half-light, eyes reflecting the languidly floating pinpricks, dreamlike. “And you’ll be here” he said quietly, almost making it sound like a question.

 _How can he question that, even now?_  “Yes” said Celebrimbor. “Yes I will.”


End file.
